


She Walked Up To The Castle

by mrsdaphnefielding



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, F/F, Maeterlinck, lyrical freestyle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-12
Updated: 2014-05-12
Packaged: 2018-01-24 12:59:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1606058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrsdaphnefielding/pseuds/mrsdaphnefielding
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"One tapestry she brings, as a dowry to prove her reign of the house. And there, in the faded yarn, the tale can be read: the king on the merlons and, down on the bridge, a figure with a crown and wild curly hair, and another one, pale, in a black hooded cloak."</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Walked Up To The Castle

**Author's Note:**

> There’s "Elle est venue vers le palais" by Maeterlinck (http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=18530; the Zemlinsky setting comes with an English translation: http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=74316). And then things below happened.

The old castle lies abandoned. Strong walls worn down by time and greed, allowing sunlight to paint across corners once hidden from light. And up in the East tower, half the floor is missing, against the wall of the bower: a tapestry, moving in the draft.

The same draft that crawled through crenels and grooves when the colors of the yarn were bright, not faded like now. A lone remnant of a reign long gone, of the voices that once filled the great hall with life.

A king with no heir. And, in between the columns, the whisper, “Lady Death took the Queen.” And a memory of laughter, warm and delighted.

For weaving is the craft of queens.

One tapestry she brings, as a dowry to prove her reign of the house. And there, in the faded yarn, the tale can be read: the king on the merlons and, down on the bridge, a figure with a crown and wild curly hair, and another one, pale, in a black hooded cloak.

~***~

She walked up to the castle on market day, a bountiful autumn morning. And around her the merchants cut her a wide berth, watchful lest they touch the dark seam of her cloak.

She pulled of her hood and the crowd shrunk away. Up on the merlons, on the arm of the King, stood the Queen, her gaze without fear. And then the Queen turned, on her husband’s arm, and down on the hill, the figure in black pulled her hood back up, but the eyes in the pale face stood out, never leaving the sight of wild curls and a crown.

For the crown is made for a queen to carry.                                                       

Its weight is deceitful. It forces measure into steps once light.

The Queen wakes first, she sleeps the last, if she sleeps. Never once has she failed in her duties. She stands by the King. Lays with him if he asks to. Sits by his side and hears hymns or complaints.

Once, so long ago that she has forgotten, she was just a girl. And ‘princess’ was just a word. She played swordfight with the princes and read to the younger ones. Because she liked to read, and she always took care of those weaker than her.

But then, one day, the swordplay was gone, the books and her afternoons spent in the gardens. A frame in the bower and shuttles and suddenly, ‘princess’ was more than a word. It was fate. And the wedding tapestry had to be woven.

~***~

She walked up to the castle, black coat and pale cheeks, again before midsummer night. Songstresses and jugglers joined her path up on the hill, but their laughter ceased when she brushed past.

She looked up at the merlons, the only motion her cloak in the wind. She did not take off her hood. She didn’t feel the summer heat, nor the fires at dusk. She never did move.

At last, they sent for the Queen.

And the heat of her gaze, from high up on the walls, she did feel. She pulled off her hood and her hair in the wind was as black as the cloak.

But the queen turned around and, once more, walked away.

And the black cloak disappeared among the fires, and into the night.

But once, there were days.

A last summer as princess and deep in the park, where the gardeners don’t care to trudge, an old, weathered fountain, the ledge sprung with age. But the stone is warm, and invites her to rest. And, once more, sun on her shoulders and not the shielded confines of the bower, and her naked feet draw patterns in cool, crystal water. Droplets on her shins, the quiet of noon, and suddenly, on the other side of the water, someone.

A statue come to life, she thinks at first, Aphrodite perhaps, and then she laughs at herself but the sound is feeble under that gaze across from her own.

“Where did you come from?”, she asks.

And the other one replies, “Where will you go?”

One will wear the crown, one will wear the cloth. And behind her back, they call her impure of blood.

But her eyes are as dark as the silkiest night, and warm like the fires of winter, and then there are four feet in the water and droplets in their hair and only the park hears their laughter.

She waits for her then, day after day, and each day she thinks she will finally know how dark those eyes are before she can see them, but her mind’s image is never enough. The water now runs down their arms and their hands that are curled into each other so tightly that no drop finds its way in between.

She kisses pearls of water off pale shoulders and fingers wind into wet curls at her neck. And the water is cool as it splashes across her hips, but she thinks she will never feel cold again.

A peacock cries out in the midday heat. And their skin is warm against the stones, and each other, and back here, the gardeners never tread.

And then she sees her at night, at a masked ball with torches, but she knows her despite her mask anyway. She wears a white cloak, her hair black like the night and her lips part behind the barrier of her fan.

The torches burn brighter when their eyes meet and then, in the dances, their fingers brush once too often for watchful eyes. And for once she won’t care and she gives her lady her ring, with a ruby as red as a heart.

And then comes the day where she waits in vain by the whisper of the fountain.

And she waits. Day after day, by the water. And the summer is ending, and the rains come, and still she waits.

And then the gardeners come.

And in the castle they tell her that it was a fever who took her. ‘perhaps better for her’ say the ladies at court, ‘she liked things that were not made for her.’

And her father tells her, you don’t take rubies into the forever night.

But you can take a heart, the princess thinks.

Then they make her weave. It needs to be done before wedlock.

For weaving is the task of a queen, and a queen has to bring her tapestry with her.

And then she is dressed in a gown full of jewels and they weigh her down like stones in the river. And the priest’s words rush over her like the stream.

The aisle seems endless. At its end waits the King. There is gray in his beard and her feet are so heavy.

And after the wedding - and she knows her duties - the King sends the gardeners down to the fountain. ‘A garden needs to be tamed’, and the Queen doesn’t nod.

When she returns to the depths of the park the next spring, two ladies-in-waiting and a page on her heels, the fountain is gone, the sprung ledge and the peacocks. Her feet hurt in her shoes, and she yearns for droplets of water against her shins and silky black hair against her palms.

There are bushes around her, trimmed to balls and high pillars, and her ladies sing songs and the page plays the lute, but the queen doesn’t listen.

~***~

She walked up to the castle, one last time, on a pale winter morning. The sun barely rose through the fog. She kept the black cloak around her, only barren trees to witness her ascent this time.

She is alone. And she stands at the feet of the walls, and she pulls back her hood. The winter winds soften around her.

On the merlons, the guards stagger backwards. Nobody else is standing up there.

And yet she waits.

And inside the castle, there is the sound of the Queen’s feet on the stairs – softly, downwards. Her hair is unbound, wild curls and a crown, and the King tries to follow her.

“Where are you going?”

The Queen doesn’t answer. And she does not stop. She walks without hurry, but her step is light. Nobody dares to step in her way as she crosses the hall. And the guards lower their eyes faced with hers and they open the gate.

She walks over the bridge, without haste. Undeterred.

“My Queen!” The King calls out, and it is an order, but the Queen doesn’t turn because this is not her name any longer. She will wear a new one, and it won’t be him to use it.

A lone figure waits for her at the foot of the walls, with a black coat that moves in the wind and a pale face that will haunt the King’s dreams until his own last day.

And the Queen steps into the waiting arms, and the cloak envelops them both. Countless nights, she has dreamt of these eyes, and yet once more she forgot their darkness and warmth. But never again. Their hands are linked tightly, not a whisper of wind would fit in between.

And together, they walk.

Perhaps into the forever night. And nothing will remain of either, except for two faded figures on an old tapestry, and, sometimes, they may appear woven into a wet nurse’s tale, a whisper after dusk, like the rustle of water.

Or perhaps they found the old fountain again, the sprung ledge, and in summer, again, the waters rise above it, to rain onto their skin, in patterns well known to their hearts.


End file.
